According to the Chinese official media Guangmingwang website, China’s State Council held a press conference on the joint prevention and control mechanism of the new coronavirus infection and pneumonia epidemic on March 6. And relevant persons in charge of the Ministry of Transport, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the State Post Office responded to social concerns on relevant issues. Regarding how to promote the efficient development of the logistics industry in the future, the official said that smart logistics will become a new trend and the government will support its development via multiple measures.
At present, the post-courier industry in China has witnessed operation resumption over 90%. However, since the outbreak of the coronavirus, many urban residents in China have said that as outsiders are not allowed to enter in some communities, many couriers have to set up “ground stalls” and wait for recipients to pick up their items at the door of the community. This makes things complicated and the packages are easy to lose.
“Recently affected by the coronavirus epidemic, indeed, many areas of the express delivery service once faced the practical problem of difficulty in entering the door. But this problem has been gradually resolved.” Liu Jun, deputy director of the State Post Bureau, said that at present, more than half of Chinese provinces have introduced policies to allow express delivery to enter residential communities after confirming that couriers’ temperature measurement is normal.
Liu Jun pointed out that in the long run, the smart terminal service facilities of mail express are a major development trend. The State Post Office will promote the introduction of some specific measures to actively promote the integration of smart terminal facilities and public service stations of mail into urban and rural public infrastructure construction, and build end-to-end public service places for intensive sharing.
In addition, in the process of responding to the coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, some key logistics companies actively use new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, 5G, and smart logistics equipment represented by automatic sorting drones, improving logistics efficiency and reducing personnel cross-infection.
“This is not only of great significance to improving emergency support capabilities, but also has a profound impact on the overall improvement of the logistics industry’s quality and efficiency.” Deputy Secretary-General of China’s National Development and Reform Commission Gao Gao said that the National Development and Reform Commission will continue to work with relevant departments to strengthen the development of smart logistics, make monitoring analysis and forward-looking researches, strive to create a good policy conditions and development environment, promote deep integration between the new-generation information technologies including the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, 5G and artificial intelligence with logistics activities, give full play to the important role of smart logistics in improving emergency logistics support capabilities, etc., to provide a strong support for the further promotion of logistics industry cost reduction and efficiency and high-quality development.
According to the report, China’s National Development and Reform Commission has always attached great importance to the development of smart logistics. In 2016, it issued the “Internet +” Efficient Logistics Implementation Opinions. In 2019, it issued the “Opinions on Promoting High-quality Logistics Development and Promoting the Formation of a Strong Domestic Market.” A series of encouragement and support policies have been proposed around promoting the development of smart logistics, promoting the application of new logistics technology, new technologies, and new equipment.